1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to systems and methods for managing patient care in a health care facility, and more particularly, to systems and methods for integrating and managing information with respect to medical care, medication delivery, asset identification, and verification of drug delivery.
2. Description of the Related Art
Medication errors, that is, errors that occur in the ordering, dispensing, and administration of medications, regardless of whether those errors cause injury or not, are a significant consideration in the delivery of healthcare in the institutional setting. Additionally, adverse drug events (ADE), which are defined as injuries involving a drug that require medical intervention and are a subset of medication errors, represent some of the most serious medication errors are responsible for a number of patient injuries and death.
Healthcare facilities continually search for ways to reduce the occurrence and severity of medication errors. Various systems and methods are commonly used to reduce the frequency of occurrence and severity of preventable adverse drug events (PADE) and other medication errors. In the administration of medication, focus is typically directed to the following five “rights” or factors: the right patient, the right drug, the right route, the right amount, and the right time. Systems and methods seeking to reduce ADEs and PADEs should take these five rights into consideration.
Delivery, verification, and control of medication in an institutional setting have traditionally been areas where errors can occur. In a typical healthcare facility, a physician enters an order for a medication for a particular patient. This order may be handled either as a simple handwritten order, or it may be entered into an automated system, such as a physician order entry (POE) system. The handwritten order or the electronic prescription from the POE system is routed to the pharmacy, where the order is filled. Typically, pharmacies check the physician order against possible allergies of the patient and for possible drug interactions in the case where two or more drugs are prescribed, and also check for contraindications. Depending on the healthcare facility, the medication may be identified and gathered within the pharmacy and placed into a transport carrier for transport to a nurse station. Once at the nurse station, the prescriptions are again checked against the medications that have been identified for delivery to ensure that no errors have occurred.
Such a system works well to verify that patients are receiving the appropriate drug when drugs are delivered orally. But the system may not be capable of thoroughly verifying that the correct administration of an intravenous (IV) drug is being provided to a patient. Incorrect administration of the medication may occur where the medication is to be administered using an automated or semi-automated administration device, such as an infusion pump (e.g., including large volume infusion or syringe type pumps), if the automated device is programmed with incorrect medication administration parameters. For example, even where the medication order includes the correct infusion parameters, those parameters may be incorrectly entered into an infusion pump, causing the infusion pump to administer the medication in a manner that may not result in the prescribed treatment. Furthermore, if the infusion pump is configured with certain operating limit parameters, the operating limit parameters may reflect values that are generally considered safe for a typical patient but that may be unsafe for the patient to whom the medication is being delivered.